Modular automated retail store and system

This application is a national phase application of PCT/CN2023/071376, filed Jan. 9, 2023, which claims priority to and the benefit of Hong Kong application Ser. No. 22/022,064364.1, filed Nov. 23, 2022, both of which are incorporated herein in their entireties.

The present invention relates to an unmanned store, and in particular, an automated storage and retailing system for providing scheduled handling of customer orders at a single retail site (e.g. at a shop location or retail facility).

Retail stores are an essential part of our society, allowing consumers to easily purchase goods they need for everyday life. However, the density of items stocked in a typical store is not efficiently optimised. For example, the height of shelves is typically designed to be only the reachable height of a typical customer, and extra aisle space needs to be reserved for customer walkways. Thus, the physical and space constraints of a store places limitations on the range, quantity and type of items that the store can offer to customers, and also affects the customer's shopping experience.

As customers adapt to changing circumstances and priorities, customer purchaser behaviour has evolved with a growing emphasis on availability, flexibility and convenience. In particular, customers value the choice of buying from a wide range of quality items, receiving their purchased items as soon as possible, and to make a purchase in a way (and at a time) that is easy and most convenient for the customer. Traditional physical stores run by staff can only satisfy some of these objectives. For example, it is almost impossible to run a store continuously 24 hours a day without needing extra staff, which adds to cost.

Online shopping sites provide an alternative shopping experience. Customers can remotely order from a wide selection of items (anywhere and at any time) through an online shopping platform. However, some human involvement is still required in the fulfilment process (e.g. to pick, pack or deliver the ordered items), which if not properly managed, can result in errors or delay.

Various automated shop solutions have been proposed. For example, Robomart Inc. has created an autonomous grocery store on wheels that offers customers the ability to pick their own groceries at home checkout-free. But the variety of groceries are limited by vehicle size and this retail business is limited by the traffic development of the city, for instance, underdeveloped roads and busy traffic. Amazon Go and 7-Eleven Signature are examples of stores that have automated the check-out process. It offers customers to walk around the shop, select and purchase groceries without requiring a cashier system. But it still requires manpower to refill, re-stock groceries to shelves and to remove the expired groceries from shelves.

Various kinds of automated convenience store have also been proposed, which generally are either robotic vending machines or vending machines that are integrated with a number of robotic components. It only offers customers instant shopping service to pick their items (e.g. soft drinks, groceries), but still requires manpower to re-stock groceries to shelves and to remove the expired groceries from shelves.

The present invention aims to address one or more of the above problems.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a retail system including:

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an automated retail store system for providing automated storage and retrieval of multiple items identified in a customer order at a single retail site, the system including:

Preferably, the automated retail store system is adapted to make use of an innovative modular storage shelf system, modular item retrieval system, modular customer locker system, robotics, 3D-vision, and backend software to sort, store, retrieve, restock merchandise items as well as to manage inventory of the system.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a retail site having an automated retail store system as described above.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a retail management system including:

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a modular storage shelf unit, comprising:

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a modular customer locker unit, comprising:

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provide a modular item retrieval system, comprising:

The present invention differs from both the vending machine automated store, and the abovementioned automated retail concept. This present invention requires neither service personnel nor cashiers in the store, the purchase orders are completed by smartphone-related technologies and automation is applied to replace the traditional features of a store.

The present invention is truly unmanned, robotic and internally automated to recognize, sort, refill, re-stock all items into predefined storage containers of predefined shelves. All purchased/ordered items are retrieved from different shelves and are gathered to the customer e-locker using fully automated robotic technology.

On store stock management, the unmanned store periodically performs stock check on all the stock in the system. Items which have expired (or are close to expiry) can be automatically retrieved from shelves to a reject container box automatically.

The automated store inventions described herein start with the concept of retail store and automation. Various retailers have attempted to provide their own versions of automated stores. However, their definition and design of such automated stores are all different, and none of them are designed to perform real “unmanned” operation cycle (e.g. performing store sales and stock management operations in an automated or autonomous manner without requiring regular human monitoring, input or control). The inventions described herein provide solutions that enable fully automated store operation cycle from sale of products, store replenishment of products, item checked-out, and payment. Certain aspects of the invention also address problems with item retrieval and delivery in existing system through application of a unique and specially designed modular Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR).

The inventions described herein also aims to solve various problems associated with existing automated store solutions, such as: (i) inability to ensure freshness of items being sold (e.g. fresh groceries or other perishable items); (ii) lack of focus on customer/user experience; and (iii) high investment cost to setup or maintain an automated store.

In relation to freshness (or ensuring minimal degradation) of items being sold, it is important to note that fresh food accounts for a significant proportion of sales in the grocery industry. However, most typical automated stores are not designed to appropriately store and sell fresh food or products with a short shelf life or even instant cooked food. Providing fresh products is important to satisfying genuine customer needs. The inventions described herein can provide a temperature-controlled delivery operation cycle. According to one aspect of the invention, a temperature-controlled cart provides an enclosed and protective storage environment for the transportation of items (particularly perishable or temperature-sensitive items) from a point of origin (e.g. a temperature controlled room in a packing or distribution warehouse) to a destination (e.g. an automated store). The cart provides different storage zones that can be separately customised or configured to provide different storage environments (e.g. in terms of different storage temperatures, air flow, physical item protection etc.) to ensure that items within the cart are stored under appropriate conditions to help ensure its freshness (or minimising changes to its state) during the transportation process. Upon arrival at an automated store, temperature-controlled carts are moved into a replenishment zone where item retrieval systems (e.g. AMR) transports containers containing the transported items to appropriate storage shelf locations within the automated store. The storage shelf locations can be separately customised or configured to provide different storage environments (e.g. in terms of different storage temperatures, air flow, physical item protection etc) to ensure that items within the cart are stored under appropriate conditions to help ensure its freshness (or minimising undesirable changes to its storage state). Alternatively, the storage shelf locations can be located in different temperature-controlled zones (or rooms) that provide different appropriate storage environments for such items. In this way, temperature-sensitive or perishable items can be stored in an appropriate or optimum storage environment to ensure freshness (or minimise degradation) of the items prior to sale. For example, an automated store incorporating inventive features as described herein can be used to store and sell fresh food with short expiry day, and even hot lunch boxes or instant cooked food that may need to be stored in relatively higher temperature environments.

In relation to focus on customer or user experience, existing automated stores try to automate specific aspects of store functionality or store operational processes mainly to achieve cost savings, but this often neglects important human considerations essential to providing an effective and satisfying online or automated shopping experience. For example. elderly customers or customers with physical disabilities will have vastly different needs to that of a typical customer. The inventions described herein include features aimed at providing the best service to customers. This includes features focusing on the ergonomic needs of different types of customers, and features aimed at minimizing waiting time. Such aspects of an automated store can be configured based on independent profile data for each user, or profile data developed to serve particular types of customers with specific (e.g. physical) needs. Operational efficiency and customer experience can be improved by allowing customers to pick up their order items at a specified pick up time to avoid waiting, where the automated store is configured to fulfil such orders in a “just in time” manner to ensure the ordered items are stored in their optimal storage environment for as long as possible, but ensure that the ordered items are ready for the customer by the specified pick up time. The automated store invention described herein also provides high flexibility to adapt variance in different shops, for example, including the ability to change the setup of a store accordingly to take care of customer experience by adapting their shopping habits, cultures and trendy products.

In relation to setup or maintenance costs, setting up a traditional automated store is a complicated process. Besides the high initial investment cost, the setup process typically requires highly skillful automation specialists and experts to install, calibrate and test the relevant systems. There are often many limitations in the setup process. For example, the machines used in an automated store are typically large and heavy, with substantial constraints on customisation. This can make it difficult to install such machines into stores with a floor space that is relatively small or of irregular shape. The automated store solution described herein include the modular design of certain components and machines (such as for storage shelves, customer locker compartments, and item retrieval systems) which are easy to setup, configure and repair/replace. This simplifies the setup/maintenance process and costs in that such equipment can be fitted and configured by fitting out companies without necessarily involving automation specialists or experts. The systems or components of the invention based on modular design can be pre-assembled in a factory to shorten the setup time. Such components can be configured in an agile and flexible way, and can be installed in shop with floorspace of any size and/or shape. Furthermore, such components can be quickly changed with ease, which helps make setup and maintenance of an automated store fast, cheap and easy.

is a block diagram of a retail systemaccording to a representative embodiment of the present invention. The retail systemcomprises of a retail management systemthat communicates with and controls one or more automated retail store systemstoover a communications network. Each automated retail store systemis setup at a single retail site and may be configured to operate as a single autonomous automated store. Preferably, each retail site is at a different location that is physically spaced apart from each other. A retail site refers to a physical location at which items from a single automated retail store systemcan be purchased and retrieved. For example, a single automated retail storemay be configured to operate within a predefined retail space (such as the space in commercial premises that can be used to operate a traditional shop or store). The physical components of each automated retail store systemcan be configured to maximise the use of such retail space.

In this specification, a communications network (e.g.,,) refers to any means of wired or wireless data communications between two or more electronic devices (e.g. between the retail management systemand automated retail store system). For example, the communications networkmay include one or more of a public network (e.g. the Internet), a private network (e.g. a virtual private network), a wide area network (WAN), public switched telephone network (PSTN), a mobile telecommunications network (e.g. a GSM™, CDMA™, UMTS™, LTE™, LTE-A™ network), and a direct physical connection or communications channel that enable data communications between different electronic devices. In, items,,may refer to different communications networks, or to different communication paths over the same communications network.

According to one aspect of the present invention as shown in, there is provided a retail management systemconfigured for receiving customer orders via a communications network. The retail management systemis also configured for controlling one or more automated retail store systemsto fulfil such customer orders in the manner described below.

According to a representative embodiment of the invention as shown in, the retail management systemmay include the following components: an automated retail store management system, an inventory material exchange system (IMAX), an order information exchange system (OIX), one or more courier client devices, an online shopping platform, one or more customer client devices, a user management systemand an electronic payment system. These components may be configured to implement one or more of the following features described below according to different exemplary aspects of different representative embodiments of the present invention.

According to one exemplary embodiment, the retail management systemincludes an online shopping platformthat is configured to provide an online store (or online ordering system). The online shopping platformincludes a content management system (CMS) (including a management platform) for providing an online store from which customers can browse items that customers can order from the online store, and browse sales promotions relating to one or more of such items. The online shopping platformcommunicates with one or more customer client devices(e.g. a personal electronic device such as a mobile phone, computing tablet or personal computer) which a customer uses to interact with the online shopping platform. A customer may control an application (e.g. an online shopping application or web browser) on the customer client deviceto view and order items from the online shopping platform. For example, this may involve the customer providing user input to the application on the customer client devicefor requesting information on one or more items from the online shopping platform. The online shopping platformis configured to respond such a request by providing item information to the application, which the application uses to generate a user interface display on the customer client deviceto present information on the one or more requested items that can be ordered via the online shopping platform. The application on the customer client deviceis configured to receive further user input from the customer representing a selection of one or more items that the customer wishes to order using the online shopping platform. Such items can be items from either a specific automated retail store systemthat is adapted to store a variety of different items and/or from a network of one or more supply warehouses or physical retail stores (together referred to as the supply warehouse) from which such the ordered items can be shipped.

In the context of the present invention and this specification, an item refers to any physical object that can be ordered from an automated retail store system. For example, an item could be any consumable product that is independently packaged as a single unit that can be individually transported, retrieved and/or dispensed (e.g. a carton of milk, a canned beverage, a bag of rice, etc.). In the context of the present invention, an order represents a set of one or more items that a customer has selected and purchased using the online shopping platform. Items of the same type or description have the same basic characteristics (e.g. in terms of the nature of the product, brand, manufacturer, packaging size or configuration, etc.). Items of the same type or description are preferably associated with the same unique item type identifier (e.g. a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) identifier).

According to one representative embodiment of the invention, in the process of the customer placing an order via the online shopping platform, the customer may select to browse items and/or order items only from a selected automated retail store system. In such a scenario, the online shopping platformmay be configured to perform a stock availability checking process to determine the items and their current quantities available at the selected automated retail store system. The online shopping platformmay be configured so that (based on the stock availability checking process) customers can only order quantities of items that are actually available at the selected automated retail store system. For example, if the selected automated retail store systemhas only six units of a particular item, the combined orders from one or more customers for that item from the selected automated retail storemust not exceed six units for that particular item. Preferably, the stock availability checking process is performed when the online shopping platformgenerates and provides item information in response to a request (e.g. from a customer client device) for information on one or more items from the online shopping platform. The stock availability checking process may be performed during (or at any time before) a customer attempts to add a selected quantity of a selected item to the customer's order. The online shopping platformwill require the customer to provide a pickup time at which the customer will retrieve the ordered items from the selected automated retail store.

Alternatively, according to another representative embodiment, the online shopping platformmay be configured such that customers are not limited to ordering quantities of items that are actually available at the selected automated retail store systemat the time of placing the order. Instead, the combined orders from customers for a particular item from the selected automated retail store systemmay exceed the actual quantity of such item at the selected automated retail store system. The online shopping platformmay be configured to perform a stock availability checking process as described above. If the online shopping platformreceives a customer's order where the required quantity for an ordered item exceeds the actual quantity of that item at the selected automated retail store system(e.g. determined by the stock availability checking process), the online shopping platformmay be configured to retrieve a restocking time estimate (e.g. generated by the automated retail store management system) representing an estimated amount of time required for restocking at least the required quantity of the ordered item to the selected automated retail store system. The online shopping platformmay be configured to perform a pickup time checking process to determine whether the pickup time provided by the customer would occur before the time required to restock at least the required quantity of the ordered item to the selected automated retail store system, and if so, the online shopping platformmay be configured to prompt the customer to select a later pickup time.

According to yet another representative embodiment of the invention, in the process of the customer placing an order via the online shopping platform, the customer may browse and/or order any items available via the online shopping platform(i.e. not limited to items available from any particular automated retail store system). The online shopping platformmay be configured to perform a stock availability checking process to determine the items and their current quantities available at the supply warehouse. In such a scenario, the online shopping platformis configured so that the quantities of items that can be ordered correspond to the quantities of those items actually available from the supply warehouse.

According to yet another representative embodiment of the invention, in the process of the customer placing an order via the online shopping platform, the customer may order items using an approach described in any one or more of the above representative embodiments. For example, some of the ordered items (e.g. items which a customer requires urgently) may be ordered for pickup from a selected automated retail store system, while the remaining ordered items (e.g. less urgent or bulky items) are ordered for delivery from the supply warehouse to the customer.

In the above scenarios, the stock availability checking process involves the online shopping platformcommunicating with the automated retail store management systemto determine (e.g. based on stock data retrieved from the IMAX) a quantity of a selected item that is currently available at a selected automated retail store systemor in the supply warehouse. The IMAXincludes a database that stores stock data representing a currently available quantity (e.g. number of units) of each item at a particular supply location (e.g. an automated retail store systemor the supply warehouse). Preferably, each item is represented by a unique item identifier (e.g. item number). Preferably, each supply location is represented by a unique store or location identifier (e.g. a store number). The IMAXmanages the inventory of items in each of the automated retail stores systemand also the inventory items in a network of one or more supply warehouses or physical retail stores (collectively referred to as a supply warehouse). The automated retail store management systemcommunicates with the IMAXto send and receive stock movement information of inventory from all (or at least one or more of) the automated retail store systemsof the retail system.

In the process of placing an order using the online shopping platform, the customer uses a customer client deviceto select one or more items to be ordered, which are temporarily added to a virtual shopping cart such that the selected items are associated with a unique identifier for the customer's order. Once a customer has finished selecting the items to be ordered, the online shopping platformgenerates and transmits order information to the automated retail store management system. Preferably, the order information for each customer order includes one or more of the following:

Preferably, according to one representative embodiment, any items in the order that are associated with a unique store identifier are treated as an order for items from the selected automated retail store systemassociated with that unique store identifier. This association is determined based on customer input provided in the process of the customer placing an order via the online shopping platform. The selected automated retail store systemwill retrieve such ordered items before the pickup time, an example of which will be described in more detail below.

Preferably, according to one representative embodiment, any items in the order that are not associated with a unique store identifier are treated as an order for items from the supply warehouse. This is also determined based on customer input provided in the process of the customer placing an order via the online shopping platform. Such items will be fulfilled by the supply warehouse and shipped to a delivery location specified by the customer.

The online shopping platformcommunicates with the user management systemto carry out a customer verification process. According to one representative embodiment of the invention, this verification process preferably begins by the online shopping platformproviding the customer identification information (e.g. a unique user identification number obtained based on input from the customer and/or information received from a customer client devicecontrolled by the customer) to the user management systemto verify an identity of the customer. The verification process may request further verification information from the customer (e.g. ask the customer to provide a username and/or password associated with the user identification number, request the customer to provide a confirmation code sequence or click on a verification URL link that has been separately sent to a previously verified email address or mobile phone number of the customer). Once an identity of the customer has been verified, the online shopping platformcommunicates with the customer client deviceto obtain payment information from the customer for the ordered items. The customer may provide payment information (e.g. credit card number) via the customer client device, or alternatively, direct the online shopping platformto retrieve such payment information stored as part of a user profile in association with the customer's identification information. The online shopping platformthen communicates with the electronic payment systemto process the customer's payment information for the items ordered.

According to one representative embodiment of the invention, after the electronic payment systemhas successfully processed the customer's payment information for the order, the online shopping platformsends the order information to the automated retail store management systemto process the order. The automated retail store management systemprovides centralised control of all (or at least one or more of) the automated retail store systemsof the retail system. The automated retail store management systemis configured to perform one or more of the following operations: (i) analyse order information received from the online shopping platform; (ii) generate, based on the order information received, control data and/or signals representing one or more executable jobs for each automated retail store systems; (iii) calculate the restock quantities and schedules for all (or at least one or more of) the automated retail store systemsof the retail system; (iv) serve as a communications bridge between the automated retail store systemsof the retail systemand any outside systems.

If the automated retail store management systemdetermines that the received order information for a customer's order includes one or more ordered items to be picked up from a selected automated retail store system, the automated retail store management systemgenerates (based on the order information) control data and/or signals representing one or more control messages for controlling one or more operations performed by the selected automated retail store system. Each control message includes information representing one or more predefined executable jobs, where each executable job refers to a set of one or more instructions and/or control signals for controlling the operation(s) of one or more internal components of the selected automated retail store systemto perform a predetermined task (or alternatively, a predetermined sequence of multiple predetermined tasks). For example, an executable job may include instructions and/or control signals for controlling a store control systemto perform one or more of the following control activities:

The automated retail store management systemsends the generated one or more control messages to the selected automated retail store systemidentified in the order information. The store control systemof the selected automated retail store system, in response to receiving the order information, controls the operation of one or more internal components of the selected automated retail store systemto perform one or more specific actions (e.g. mechanical actions, receive sensor data input etc.) corresponding to each predetermined task in each executable job. For example, based on the control message(s) received, the selected automated retail store systemmay be controlled to retrieve the items identified in the order information and place the retrieved items into one or more delivery containers for the customer to pickup from the selected automated retail store systembefore (e.g. by or within a predetermined period of time before) the pickup time indicated in the order information.

According to one representative embodiment of the invention, the automated retail store management systemmay determine (e.g. based on stock data received from the IMAXand/or response messages received from the store control systemof a selected automated retail store system) whether a selected automated retail store systemdoes not have all of the ordered items, or does not have sufficient quantities of one or more ordered items, or request one or more items to be restocked in the system(i.e. shortfall items). Based on the above data/messages, the automated retail store management systemdetermines an availability of one or more of such shortfall items from an alternative supply location such as the supply warehouse and/or from one or more other automated retail store systemsproximate to (e.g. with a predetermined travel time or travel distance from) the selected automated retail store system.

For example, according to a representative embodiment of the invention:

The automated retail store management systemthen selects one or more of the above delivery options (a), (b), (c) or (d) that can deliver the shortfall items to the selected automated retail store systembefore the pickup time in the order information. The automated retail store management systemthen further selects one or more of the selected delivery options based on predetermined criteria (e.g. based on item availability in, delivery time from, and/or travel distance from the alternative supply location for each selected delivery option), and for each delivery option generates suborder information for the supply warehouse and/or the relevant automated retail store systemto retrieve the required quantities of the order items to fulfil the customer's order. Each said suborder information may include a scheduled pickup time (set before the pickup time in said order) for a courier to pickup from the alternative supply location the items retrieved based on the suborder information by the scheduled pickup time, and load these items into the selected automated retail store systembefore the pickup time.

The automated retail store management systemalso generates delivery instructions that are transmitted to a courier client device. The delivery instructions configure the courier client device(e.g. through a courier application installed on the courier client device) to display delivery information for a courier to pickup the shortfall items from the locations identified in selected delivery option, and deliver these items to the selected automated retail store systembefore the pickup time in the order information selected by the customer.

If the automated retail store management systemdetermines (e.g. based on stock data for a particular item received from the IMAX, and/or response messages received from a selected automated retail store systemrepresenting a restock request for one or more specific item(s) or indicating a quantity of a specific item in that store system) that a quantity of any particular item at the selected automated retail store systemis less than a predetermined threshold stock level for that item, the automated retail store management systemgenerates and sends to the supply warehouse a restock request message containing restock order information representing one or more items (and a restocking quantity for each such item) for restocking the selected automated retail store system. For example, the threshold stock level may be a predetermined quantity of an item (e.g. a minimum number of units or percentage of stock) that should be available at the selected automated retail store system. The restocking quantity of an item may be determined based on information obtained from the IMAX, such as a current quantity of that item available at the selected automated retail store systemand/or a predetermined (e.g. maximum) quantity of that item which can be stored at the selected automated retail store system. Preferably, the automated retail store management systemdetermines whether restocking of any items at a selected automated retail store systemis required (in the manner described above) on a periodic basis (e.g. on a daily or weekly basis or according to a predetermined schedule).

When the supply warehouse is ready to deliver the items specified in a restock request message (referred to as restock items) to the selected automated retail store system, the supply warehouse updates the information stored in the OIXto include details of the restock items delivered from the supply warehouse to the selected automated retail store system(referred to as a restock delivery).

The automated retail store management systemmay generate restocking instructions that are sent to the courier client deviceof a courier assigned to deliver the restock items to the selected automated retail store system. The restocking instructions may include: (i) delivery information for configuring a user interface of a courier client device(e.g. through a courier application installed on the courier client device) to display directions or instructions for a courier to pickup and deliver specific restocking items to the selected automated retail store system; and/or (ii) item organisation information for configuring a user interface of a courier client device(e.g. through a courier application installed on the courier client device) to display to the courier directions or instructions for preparing or reorganising one or more of the items being delivered for restocking the selected automated retail store system. For example, if the OIXindicates that a restock delivery includes two 6-packs of soft drink, but the selected automated retail store systemonly requires 8 units of the soft drink to be restocked, the reorganised item information (in this example) could include directions or instructions for the courier to disassemble the two 6-packs of soft drink and only provide the required number of units for restocking that item at the selected automated retail store system. The item organisation information for each item in a restock delivery may be generated based on a quantity of that item at the selected store system(obtained from the IMAX) and the quantity and packaging of the restock items being delivered to the selected automated retail store systemin a restock delivery (obtained from the OIX).

The courier application on the courier client devicealso provides an interface for providing the one or more of the following kinds of instructions to a courier (e.g. based on information from the automated retail store management system, IMAXand/or OIX): (i) sorting and/or organising the restock items in different delivery or restocking containers; (ii) remote control to operate an access barrier (e.g. a door) to a locker compartment at an automated retail store system; and (iii) to retrieve containers (e.g. delivery containers, restocking containers, reject containers, etc.) and items from an automated retail store systemback to the supply warehouse.